


direct registration

by craftingdead



Category: The Crafting Dead
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Sexual Abuse, nick/vacktor shippers don't interact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 18:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17606876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/craftingdead/pseuds/craftingdead
Summary: Direct Registration is an evolutionary tool aided to cats that lines up their front and hind paws. It muffles the noise the animal makes as well as minimizing visible tracks.(This fic is not supposed to be taken as a way of fetishizing or romanticizing abusive relationships. Nick & Red's relationship is not healthy and should not be portrayed as "healthy" or ideal in any way, shape, or form. If you take this fic OR their relationship like that, know that I really, really, really don't like you.)





	direct registration

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE don't trigger yourself reading this. it has explicit references to domestic abuse and should not be taken lightly. writing enough of this shit was hard enough as it was. this is a callout for nick/vacktor shippers at wattpad: learn to write you freaks

“Is love supposed to hurt?”

The only thing that comes up for you is quotes, poems, blog websites, and quora.com. Objectively, both the poems and quotes are beautiful, but they are not what you're looking for. There’s another thing—”True Love SHOULD Be Painful” and then Reddit. You would search further, but the computer screen’s a little too bright and the typing’s a little too loud. (If you had searched deeper into the results, you would’ve heard about domestic abuse but instead, you shut the laptop as quietly as possible and lightly set it back on his desk as lightly as possible, feet balancing on tip-toes and leaning forward.)

It’s a dance well-worn into your soles; creeping around the house, dancing across the boards that creak the least. Better to be paranoid than deal with the consequences of running into him on a bad day or tripping into one of his friends on a too-good day.

(You’ve been punched in the face one too many times for creeping up on some six-foot dude who can’t see two inches below him.

Once you said you weren’t comfortable with the company he kept. He responded with a confused, “So you don’t like me? Is that what’s going on?”

“No, no, that’s not it,” you responded, your face burning up.

“Oh, don’t take that tone with me. We all know you can’t keep any company to save your life, so why are you making fun of me?”

“I’m sorry.” You were. “I’m not making fun of you. I won’t bring it up again. I’m sorry.”)

Most of the time you’re too ragged to walk. Most of the time you’re too ragged to _move._ That was one of the better nights.

Normally, your routine goes: Wake up, then lie in bed for thirty minutes to an hour trying to muster up the strength to get up. There would be scratches down your sides and you’d be lucky if they didn’t start bleeding when you got up to stretch. (On the really, really bad days, you lay in bed for as long as you can, sore and miserable, until he got home and dragged your ass out of bed and pushed you into a shower to clean off.) Usually, you would mess around on your phone (if you had it) and ignore the voicemails and texts piling up and denying anyone that tried to call you while you were watching YouTube with the sheets pulled up to your chin.

You NEVER look through your photo album. Unless you get a text while in bed and are too tired (or sore) to get up. Old photos are better than no photos. You hope he never notices that they’re ones he took. He hasn’t so far.

But, on the mornings you can, you _always_ drag yourself to the shower. It’s comforting to sit under hot water for as long as you like—he never gets home until one, and you usually wake up around nine or ten. It’s always a riot trying to wring out your hair afterward, but it’s worth the steam and relaxation of a locked door and privacy.

Then you get out, brush out your hair, throw on some clothes and long for your binder. It always hurts to put on in the morning, so you’re forced to wait until the afternoon.

You’re pretty sure he likes you better this way, anyways.

He always calls around eleven, and you always make sure not to miss it—shower or no shower. He’s always the nicest at this hour, too. Calls you pet names and laughs and talks up a show about how none of his co-workers are as good as you and how much he misses you and can’t wait to get home to you and how much he wants to fucking burn the place he works in down—or at least kill the boss. He says the last one in a low and muffled voice as if his hand was pressed against the side of his mouth like he’s whispering some dire secret to you and you snicker with the phone pressed against your shoulder and your ear and try to ignore how disturbing his words are.

“We should watch a movie tonight. Watch a movie and get pizza.” You respond that it’s a wonderful idea. There’s a trail of bruises leading up to your wrists. He probably has a thing for marks. They would raise suspicion if not for the fact you haven’t been in contact with your friends and family for eight months, and rarely leave the house.

“I won’t be home until later tonight. That’s why I suggested the idea. Easier than making dinner.”

“It’s okay!” You miss him dreadfully. You don’t even know what he does for work, but these “staying out later” nights have been piling up and up. You miss waiting at the door for him at one PM. The most recent deviation from the norm was at six PM. You had fallen asleep at your desk. You c a n ‘ t ? really remember much from that night. You don’t think you woke up after. He let you sleep. For once? It’s all blurry.

(“I’m sorry, but I have to leave. My classes are still going on.”

“Oh. Fine.”

“I wish I could talk to you longer, but I can’t. Bye! I miss you!”

“Sure, talk to you later.”)

He didn’t mention that it was your anniversary once, but that doesn’t bother you. He’s busy at work (despite the fact that it’s been a whole year and he’s never paid attention to any of the anniversaries).

 

//

 

You met him when you were fifteen. It was an older friend’s birthday, so you got forged IDs and went out to one of their favorite places. They were the only one there who was twenty-one, so it was an absolute riot watching all your friends do shit they shouldn’t (and dragging them away when they were flirting with people they shouldn’t). Out of everyone there, you were one of the few to only drink water the entire time. Your sister, absolutely buzzed, called you a buzzkill and you had to remind her how illegal what you were doing was.

He was the “leader” of a group who’d been harassing you and your friends for the past few months. And, apparently, a fight broke out between some of them and some of yours later into the night, because _of course_ , they’d show up when you were trying to have a peaceful night out.

Ghetto left for two seconds. He left your side for two fucking seconds, leaving you alone.

That’s all it took for you to wake up in the morning on some strangers couch.

Parts of you were sore as hell and your memory was fuzzy and you swear you remember… something… with the dude? Maybe not? You don’t know? (You felt like you were gonna throw up.) But it took you a good minute or so to realize that he was _not_ someone you knew.

When the “stranger’ noticed you freaking the fuck out, he told you not to worry then when you freaked the fuck out some more after realizing who he goddamn was, he explained the situation to you: Saw some dude slip something into your drink. Wasn’t gonna bother until he saw you missing. Beat the shit out of the guy before he could go any further, then dragged you back to his place since he couldn’t find any of your friends. Then he went back to putting some things away in his cupboard.

“Oh,” you said. “Sorry, then, I guess, for freaking the fuck out before. But can you blame me?”

He said no and you smiled. Two months later you were texting daily, hourly, minutely, and two weeks after that you were dating. None of your friends knew. He said they wouldn’t understand. You believed him. You moved in with him on your sixteenth birthday. No one taught you what Rohypnol looked like and you were too infatuated to bother looking it up.

 

//

 

The moon was sharper than a nail and still he hadn’t come home. You were laying across the couch, a slice of pizza in one hand and your phone in the other. Some Christmas movie played in the background despite the fact that it still months away and you really wish you weren’t crying. Sometimes, you feel like you got more immature when you started dating him. Or maybe it was that he was so much more mature than you and you and all your friends had just been dumb fucks.

A migraine was fixed in your head (like he fixes his teeth in your shoulder since he likes to bite and you can’t really stop him where did this come from again? he doesn’t leave marks) and you were tempted to go to sleep because you were fucking tired and classes stressed you out today and the tutors kept asking questions you couldn’t answer.

Your phone rang.

Apparently, “ghetto weed” was calling you (you put him down like that because you both thought it was hysterical that his last name rhymes with weed and you hadn’t gathered up the courage to change it to something plain like “Ghetto” or even remove his number from your phone. You did with enough of your friends. Why not him.) For once, you consider answering him. You chew on your lip. You miss him (and everyone else).

_“Hey, where’d you think they keep the apple juice?”_

_“You’re like, standing right next to it, dipshit.”_

_You’re in a convenience store and rummaging around for chips while your best fucking friend hunts down apple juice and the girl up-front keeps glaring at you for being louder than she’s used to and you don’t bother to apologize since the big wad of pink gun she’s chewing is driving you up a wall and you’re best FUCKING friend is about to make a horrible weed joke in t-minus four seconds and you are young, you are young, you are young…_

Your phone is still ringing when he slams open the door in a dirty hoodie, obviously exhausted. You nearly throw your phone against the wall jumping up to look at him with a faux smile and pretending like you weren’t just fantasizing about the past. Your phone is still ringing and he can see who’s calling from where he stands. Fuck. You pretend to be happy to see him.

He cocks his head to the right.

If you had enough courage, you would cock yours to the left; a challenge.

(He never actually hits you. Just threatens to, a hand raised as you flinch away. Well, okay, there was that one time where an old friend called you and it pissed him off since you weren’t actually supposed to be in contact with them at all anymore but it’s okay since he doesn’t know you call him every day. If he learns, he’ll probably have a much worse response but for now he doesn’t and for now, you can continue lying to two people until Ghetto stops putting up with your shit. You wish you could remember.)

(you are young, you are young, you are young…)


End file.
